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DALLAS — Like spokes stretching from its 400-foot arch, the steel cords of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge propel us from the glossy downtown Arts District to gritty West Dallas. Renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, performer Lyle Lovett and 3,000 partygoers blanketed the westbound lanes of Calatrava's bridge for its over-the-top unveiling in March. Now, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, our rental car crosses its elegant expanse alone. The breeze in the grass makes the only waves in the Trinity River bed below. Here is a city at a crossroads. Its image often reduced to fast cars, fervent shopping and the fall of JFK, Dallas is striving to diversify that view while...

The mood was festive at the Genesis Center in downtown Gary over the weekend as Karen Freeman-Wilson was sworn in as mayor, but in the estimation of many observers, she and her city are on borrowed time.
Seated on the dais at the center of a row of newly...

Shortly after running into Vince Vaughn down the street from the Ritz-Carlton hotel Friday afternoon, Michael Rapaport, director of “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest,” relayed the experience to Tribe Called Quest rapper...

LeAnn Rimes and husband Eddie Cibrian looked at condos in Chicago Monday, according to the country music star's Twitter page."Long day in Chicago house hunting!" Rimes tweeted. "Think we found something. Now, I just need to add our little...

Take a beloved book, turn it into a film – and take cover, because the millions who adore the book will come out swinging. Their affection makes them protective. Love makes them loyal – and ready to punch anyone who messes with the object of their...

The first screening of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" came just weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11. The movie had been in the works for years, the first in a trilogy based on novels that had been written decades earlier, of...

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. — I've been trying to think of the term for that particular experience of entering a seemingly small space only to discover it's much larger. Until I can remember the right word for that phenomenon — if the word really exists — I've...

Cliff Robertson, who starred as John F. Kennedy in a 1963 World War II drama and later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a mentally disabled bakery janitor in the movie "Charly," died Saturday, one day after his 88th birthday.
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I spent a full day on the set with the "Boss" cast and crew when they were filming here this summer, and I walked away with the distinct impression that the series would not fall into some of the same traps that hampered Fox's "The...

Kal Penn and John Cho aren't all that much like their stoner characters in the “Harold & Kumar” franchise, but you wouldn't know it by the way the two co-stars bantered back and forth about their favorite Christmas songs at the Park Hyatt Chicago...

Life for Denis O'Hare has changed significantly. Vampires and their ilk took care of that.O'Hare has always worked as an actor, ever since graduating during an especially fertile period for Northwestern University and arriving on the Chicago theater scene...

About halfway through writing the script for "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas" (which opens at the Wilmette Theatre next week), Edward Burns says he found himself at a crossroad. "Do I want to make the big, crazy, funny, holly-jolly...

In today's age of political gridlock in the nation's capital, the case of Thomas Jefferson, as much as that of any American president, could illuminate a way forward. That's the underlying premise of “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” biographer Jon...

It was a cruel, cruel year — a year that kept raising our hopes, only to squash them flatter than a dead possum on the interstate.
Example: This year the "reality" show "Jersey Shore," which for six hideous seasons has been a...

There's a reason Matthew McConaughey's character wears a black Stetson in "Killer Joe," a self-knowingly sleazy crime drama that's simultaneously repellent and enjoyable.His is no white-hat role, and both he and the movie are the better for...

Beyond the economic and political ramifications of globalization, consider its effect on movie stories: the cross-cultural slice-and-dice, a la "Babel," that too often passes for meaning and resonance. In "360," the new...

A decades-spanning musical drama about a mother and daughter, "Beloved" is both broody and bright, steeped in amour in all its Gallic permutations: mad, destined, unrequited, sustaining.In the central roles, real-life mother and daughter...

Some of the biggest blockbuster movies in the last 10 years are based on books. (That means you, Harry Potter and “The Hunger Games”). But the annual television lineup has always included its share of book adaptations as well, dating back to at least...

Look at that face in the photo and try to tell me that is not a great neighborhood face. Aging handsomely and full of life, it is the face of actor Danny Goldring — even the name is neighborhood perfect, Danny — sitting in the barbershop that he has...

You knew it was only a matter of time before there would be cross promotion between the “Chicago Fire” TV show and the Major League Soccer club by the same name.Eamonn Walker -- who plays Battalion Chief Wallace Boden on the upcoming NBC firefighter drama...